danplanfandomcom-20200214-history
The Drama
The Drama started on January 4th, 2020. It was about the mistreatment and underpayment of the personalties (mainly Stephen) and the animators. There are three videos and several comments right now on the situation. Stephen's Side Summary Video Stephen wasn’t part of the official DanPlan crew back when they were a gaming channel, it was mainly Dan and Hosuh until Hosuh wanted there to be a third person. So, he asked Stephen. He agreed to join, and you know the rest of the story. They turned into an animation channel, and their view/subscriber count skyrocketed. All seemed good for a while, until this year. Stephen didn’t see YouTube as a job, but a hobby while Daniel saw it a different way. The videos made them 4k-63k a month. But, Stephen got less than 300 dollars. Even though he didn’t do as much work as the other two, he still molded the channel’s history. So, he confronted Daniel. They argued for hours. Stephen brought Hosuh into the argument, which he’s very sorry for. In the end, he said what he can do to get a raise. Here’s what Daniel said. “Nothing. You’re just an employee, you have no share.” That quote stuck with Stephen for a long time. He wanted to leave but three things decided to make him stay: Hosuh trying to fix DanPlan, the fame, and to prove that he wasn’t an employee. So, he decided to prove himself to Daniel by bringing in his own comedy in the video. Those drastically different personalities in those videos were him trying to prove that he wasn’t an employee. But, in the end, Daniel didn’t care. Those months of constant mistreatment were too much, so he quit. Livestream Stephen said at the beginning of the stream for Daniel to at least say something and resolve it with him. He also talked about the financial divide with the team members. He said that he used to get $25 per hour of recording. Each recording took about 1-2 hours, the most are 4. So, he got around $200 a month. Hosuh and Dan got 50/50 in finance until Daniel made it 85(Dan)/15(Hosuh). He asked Hosuh how much he made, and he said $42,000 from two years. Now, if we consider that is actually 15% of the total, we end up at $280,000 in total revenue (w/ merch and sponsorships). Then, he investigated further on this matter of unfair payment. He asked the animators on how much they make, and they said ~$450 per month. Taking this into consideration Daniel gets about $20,000 per month. He said that he can’t pay them because he doesn’t have enough. And, he keeps saying this is business. In the updated description, he said the Jay didn’t decide to copy Stephen himself, Dan suggested for him to copy Stephen. Videos Fan Response This is the first instance of a member of the channel saying things about this situation. The fandom immediately showed love and support to Stephen. There were lots of fanart, fan videos, even something just as simple as a Twitter statement. But, some people took anger out on Dan. Most of it was mild, just a twitter statement or YouTube comment. But, some took it too far. They attacked him directly. They harassed him to get a response. Some even sent death threats to him. But, others were trying to inform people to not harass Dan. They just made memes most of the time. Others made official statements in the comments or on Twitter. Some even created videos. To the channel itself, people unsubscribed, making the channel lose 80k subscribers in only a few days (They were at 2.04M, now they’re at 1.96M). Many people want to hear Daniel’s response to: show his side, explain everything, want an apology, and make the fandom chill again. After Dan's Video Jay's Side Summary On January 17th, Jay posted his response to this situation. He made the video to state why he’s not part of Danplan. So, let’s go back to the beginning. He met Dan in the first year of university. During that time, he wanted to do YouTube and needed some people. So, Jay joined in because he was also interested in YouTube. Note, this was the time they were a gaming channel. The second or third year of university is when their schedules got really offbeat and he brings up their co-op. Daniel’s co-op was relatively near his home town. Jay’s co-op was far, he has to take a plane ride to a nearby airport of the co-op and has to take a nine-hour bus ride to get there. His co-op was basically a mountain top, so he had no cell reception and unstable internet. After co-op work, he goes back to school and finishes his third year. So, he goes back and does more co-op work. At this point, they barely contact each other. He does that co-op work for 8 months, and after that, he does 8 more months of co-op work for a different company. In March 2019, he asked Jay again to record again which he complied with. He noticed some slight changes. He recorded just for fun, and he knew how much Dan made ~16k dollars a month. But, he didn’t care because he was just a guest. All seemed good until July 2019. He had a suspicion that something was wrong with Danplan. So, he started to investigate. But, when Dan found out about this he tried to make him drop it. He learned some major issues. The main one was about the financial division of the main trio. When the channel was starting to rise, Dan split the money with Hosuh 50/50 and left out Stephen. His reason was that he didn’t care about the channel. His example was Stephen was on his phone during the recordings, but it really only happened twice during 4-hour recording sessions. He also said he didn’t do basic jobs to help produce the video (editing, drawing, etc.). But, Stephen had a massive influence on the channel (Jay estimated around 40% of viewers came to see Stephen). Also, Hosuh wanted the money to grow the channel. And then he changed the share between them to 85(D)/15(H) and 0(S). Stephen learned about how much they made for each video, ~40,000 dollars for 3 videos and he got almost zip. Stephen then requested for 20% of the revenue they make. This is when Dan makes the infamous “You’re just an employee, you have no share” statement. His big mistake was the implication behind those actions. So, Jay goes into the business side of this at this point (Note: As he said in the video, he does not study business but he does know the fundamentals). Share has two sides to it: the money and the representation. Basically, if you get 25% of the revenue, you are 25% of the company. Stephen knew the definitions, so he asked for share as compensation for his work. But for Dan, he viewed shares as only something originals can get otherwise you wouldn’t get it, but this definition changes greatly. Stephen’s title as an “original” got taken away since he “does nothing.” So, Dan’s implying by giving him 0%, he’s saying that he’s not an original and worth 0% and easily replaceable. The second issue is the management of animators. He made a survey to the animators saying if they liked working there, and 8 out of the 10 animators said no. It started off with three animators (Hosuh included), now there are 12 animators (without Hosuh) getting paid an inconsistent 450 dollars per month. Jay saw one example of Dan guilt-tripping the animators about the prices. The third issue with the animators is that he does not motivate the animators, instead, Dan replaces animators who leave the team. The fourth animator issue is that there is no difference between full and part-time animators. Alright, need to say this again, Jay is not a business major. Part-time jobs have an hourly wage, the more you work, the more you get paid. Full-time jobs have a set salary, with a few benefits. In Danplan, there is no difference (maybe the full-time animators get paid a bit more) and no benefits. The third animator issue, they’re not a community they once were. Before at the magical time of three animators, they talked, played games, and have fun with each other. Now, they just sit in their metaphorical cubicles doing their own thing. When Jay was there in the recruitment process of the animators, Dan explained that he hired the best of the best out of all of the 100s of applications. But in Jay’s investigation, he said that “People will leave eventually, people won’t stay forever.” That was his solution to the animator problem. In his investigation, Jay told him about the problems and how to improve it. But, Dan told him he “knew what he was doing” and denied some of the problems. His response to the investigation was “Jay, from now on don’t ever interfere or dig around the inner workings of the channel, it’s my channel.” To sum it up, he basically said *clears throat*: “Fuck off, it’s my channel I can do whatever I want.” During the investigation, Jay learned that he was going to replace Hosuh for his mandatory military service in Korea for 2 years. So, Jay asked if he was going to get shares, which surprise surprise, he said no. Not even original enough to get even .5% of the share. Which, is not about the money, it’s about the worth. Dan said that he would support Jay if he made his own channel. Dan said “Go make your own channel. I will support you, give you shoutouts, help you get sponsors. But, you will not get shares from Danplan.” From that point on, he stayed silent about the things wrong about the channel. The third mistake is that he would give hourly pay for each recording session which he rejected. The reason is that the first is 20 dollars per hour. For Jay, the recording length is different, lasting one hour maybe even two and they record about biweekly. At best, he gets $80 per month, which recording sessions have gotten down because school started. Dan now earns 20k dollars per month. The second reason is that it wasn’t the right circumstances. Dan now only contacts him for content purposes. Which, wasn’t what friends do (usually they contact to say Hi and have some friendly conversation). Even though he has a class with him, he still doesn’t talk with him. Jay felt like he’s basically, to quote him, a callgirl, stripper, or hooker. Dan managed to hurt his pride, which is hard to break. Jay warned Dan a couple of months ago about this situation happening. He said, “What will you do if somebody left Danplan?” Dan replied with “I don’t care who leaves. This is my channel and I will run it based on my belief. If it sinks because of that, it sinks.” This is why he said he’s not part of Danplan because of those problems. Discord Statements Before Jay's Video For Stephen's video, Jay explained it’s not about money, it’s about being treated with respect. For the channel, Jay said that the channel will still live. He said that Daniel has a line of replacement people for him, Jay being one of them. But, Jay is not an official DanPlan member, and he makes no money off from it. He also said that the animator Jay left for the exact same reasons as Stephen. Before Dan's Video Jay stated that Dan threw out 4 of Hosuh's projects. He wished he was smarter so that he can prevent this from happening. Jay said Dan doesn't care about the apology/learning from his mistakes, he wouldn't be surprised if Dan packed up everything and said: "F*ck you, thanks for the money, and bye." After Dan's Video Jay gave an analogy about Dan's argument and talking tactic. To quote him: "If I tell you that the left side looks green, what do you know about the left side? that, what do you know about the right side? All he does is talk about the left side while ignoring the important right." Jay said Dan cherry-picked the pays. He also got two screenshots of full-time animators about their pay but didn't decide to release then because the two didn't allow him. He might soon because his credibility about to be ruined. Jay clarified that Dan didn't concede defeat, he's winning. Jay might make a move soon because of his credibility about to be ruined. Jay is pissed off because people will 'believe' Dan again, and he stated that he's a good con artist Video Discord Statements Fan Response After his response, people doubted Dan even more. Most people wanted Dan to share his response Daniel's Side Summary This summary is from u/iwilleatyou_ on the DanPlan Reddit. I was still contemplating life. The channel started, they realized that a YouTube channel is hard to manage, then they got back to YouTube and made DanPlan gaming channels. Dan turned down a big once in a lifetime job for YouTube. He never thought that Stephen would leave like this. Stephen told him that he doesn't consider YouTube as a job. After some time Stephen finds out how much Dan is making and asked for 33%. He and Stephen had a fight because Dan felt that Stephen did not do as much as him. Dan says Stephen told him to talk and then made a stream talking about the situation. Then Dan fights back some of the claims that Stephen said in his stream. Video Fan Response The response was mixed. Some people took right back to Dan's side and spread some love. They told him to keep going and not listen to the haters. Some people even started to hate Jay and Stephen. Some people were still skeptical of Dan. Some people looked at inaccuracies in Dan's video, stating that it had more inaccuracies than Jay's and Stephen's arguments. Some people wondered who was lying. Overall, this response did not fix the fandom like some hope, some might say it made things worse. Other's Perspectives Hosuh On Stephen's Livestream about "What's Our Moral Compass," Hosuh said this: "Back in high school, Daniel was like a really good guy. I respected him. He was great. He knew how to get along with people but now he has somewhat changed. People change." This basically means that Dan to Hosuh isn't the same nice guy he was back in high school. All Perspectives (Note - Please include a basic timeline of the events that happened in all of the videos with all of the perspectives. I am too emotionally mixed to even talk about this without going into this with rationality. So, It would be nice for you to include it.)